A Kitchen Sink Drama
by Solsbury Girl
Summary: subtitle: "Rikki Don't Lose That Number". Domestic trouble causes Owen to wonder whatever is going on between Jack and Ianto.


**A Kitchen Sink Drama **

(or "Rikki Don't Lose That Number")

_I don't want to give too much away to the people out there who will get the joke. But you have to know just a little bit about a very popular 70's band, that still gets airplay today, for this story's pay-off line to work. The clue is in the title._

* * *

"Jack?"

Owen could hear Ianto calling from the kitchen out into the Hub. He had been approaching the kitchen in the hope of blagging a coffee but hung back a moment to find out what was going on. Ianto sounded a little frustrated. Drama of a human kind, rather than of an alien kind, always broke up the day nicely, especially if it involved a tiff between Teaboy and Captain.

"JACK?" the archivist became more insistent.

Owen sensed that all was really not well.

Jack, summoned by the call, squeezed past Owen, catching his gaze. Jack raised his eyebrows, made a downwards shape with his mouth, and shrugged his neck back into his body in the time honoured gesture of "oh heck, now I am in for it."

Owen picked his moment and accompanied Jack into the kitchen, rightfully realising that whatever Jack had done was going to get Ianto's full attention. And was probably going to be entertaining.

Ianto was standing beside the dishwasher, which he had clearly been unloading. He was holding a stick. A brown stick that was split almost in half. He brandished it at Jack in a manner that even Owen found threatening.

"And what is this?" demanded Ianto. "What has happened here, exactly? Would you care to explain? You know the rules. We established them most clearly after the incident when you put Mortimer in the dishwasher." Ianto was furious. Jack was anxious. Owen was just plain confused.

"I didn't put Mortimer in the dishwasher on purpose," said Jack. "It was an accident."

"You couldn't have put him in the dishwasher by accident. No one, not even you, puts things in a dishwasher by accident. A washing machine, yes, it happens. Mobile phones in pockets, it happens." Here he glared at Jack in a way that left Owen in no doubt about what really happened to Ianto's phone, the one they had turned the Hub inside out looking for a few months ago. "But dishwashers – no. I cannot accept that things get into dishwashers by accident."

Jack stood quietly, accepting the dressing down. He kept his hands clasped firmly behind his back and said nothing. He knew that Ianto hadn't finished.

Owen could only watch in silent bewilderment.

"AND," said Ianto "that brings us back to the question of exactly what is this?" He brandished the split stick again. More threateningly, if that was possible. Owen winced when he thought about the possibilities.

Jack bowed his head. "Um, that is Pierre. I am sorry, Ianto. I'm sorry about Mortimer, and I am sorry about Pierre. I know how attached you were to them both."

Owen shook his head, wondering if he had fallen into some kind of alternative universe. Or had perhaps banged his head without realising it. Because none of this was making any kind of sense. No sense at all. "Jack, a word, please." he grabbed the Captain's arm and spun him out of Ianto's hearing. "What the fuck is going on here? Someone has clearly gone mad, but even as the team doctor, I am just not sure which one of the three of us it is. Does Ianto really have pet sticks that you put in the dishwasher?"

Jack pursed his lips and nodded. "It's OK. Whatever you think is going on cannot be as weird as what is really happening."

Owen sat down heavily. "Really?" He looked across to Ianto, who was shaking his head sadly as he looked at his stick. "Care to tell me more about it? I think that, as your doctor, I really do need to understand this. Who the hell was Mortimer? And how did he end up accidentally in the dishwasher? Please tell me, Jack, that you didn't put Ianto's pet cat in the dishwasher. And that he then named a stick after it. God, Canary Wharf has a lot to answer for."

Jack smiled wanly. "No, it was worse than that. I put his favourite wooden spoon in the dishwasher."

Owen examined Jack's face for any sign of a smile that might indicate the two men were winding him up. He was, after all, pretty sure it wasn't April Fools Day.

Ianto chose this moment to pitch into the fray. Angrily, he reiterated "Mortimer was my favourite wooden spoon!"

Owen sagged, open mouthed. He had long suspected that Ianto had some kind of minor obsessive compulsive disorder, but he'd fruitlessly watched and waited for it to manifest. Today seemed like pay day. Or perhaps Volcano Day. It felt like it could go either way. "Ianto," he said gently, switching into doctor mode "are you trying to tell me that you had a favourite wooden spoon, and it was called Mortimer? It had a name? Mortimer?"

Ianto nodded, seeing nothing at all strange in this. "Yeah."

Jack wiped his hand across his face, seeing where Owen was heading. "We were on a day trip to Nottingham; we'd gone to do the whole Robin of Sherwood Forest experience. We went to the castle. And you can go down into the dungeons and tunnels. There's a tunnel called Mortimer's Hole. We'd been shopping in town first and in a shop on Slab Square...."

"....the Old Market Square," corrected Ianto primly, beginning to confirm Owen's feeling about the OCD.

"...Ianto bought a wooden spoon. When we went up to the castle the spoon was nestling snugly in Ianto's back pocket..." Jack's expression indicated he was in the middle of a misty reminiscence of the day and particularly of the snugness of Ianto's jeans. He was definitely smirking.

"And that's why it was called Mortimer," finished Ianto acidly. The smirk fell quickly from Jack's face. "It was called Mortimer because it did the tour of Mortimer's Hole."

The Captain and the archivist both stopped in the mutual retelling of the story and looked at Owen, obviously expecting him to indicate some degree of understanding. Which he didn't. He couldn't. He was still very perplexed. He gestured with his right hand, a couple of turns of the wrist with his palm open indicating that someone, please, should continue. Quickly.

Ianto looked at Jack from under hooded eyelids. "I used Mortimer all the time. He wore down so that the bowl of the spoon had a pointy shape. You could really get into the corners of the saucepans. It was just the best wooden spoon ever. And then Jack had to go and put him in the dishwasher."

Jack was examining his fingernails, unwilling to meet Ianto's angry gaze or the indescribably baffled look of his doctor. "And the water split the handle in two. Ruined it." he muttered. "Bowl fell off too."

"Pardon, Jack, I didn't quite hear that?" said Ianto, who had heard it perfectly well.

It was Owen's turn to rub a hand across his face. "OK, OK. So that was Mortimer. Who the fuck is Pierre?"

"This is Pierre!" said Ianto, brandishing his stick and advancing on both the doctor and Jack. Owen flinched. "He was Mortimer's replacement. Made of sterner stuff, a good olive wood. We got him at a French market. The Saturday morning market in Vannes. And he was a perfect replacement for Mortimer. Took me a while, but I wore him into shape, with a nice pointy bit at the front."

Owen knew, just knew, instinctively that he would regret his next question, but he had to ask it anyway. As much for his own peace of mind as anything else. "And why is it called Pierre?"

"He" Ianto stressed the word 'he', a counterpoint to Owen's use of 'it', "is called Pierre because......"

Jack felt obliged to step in here, because he could see that Doctor Owen Harper was already planning sedation, psychological counselling, and months off work for Ianto. And possibly for Jack, too. "Because," offered Jack, "I said 'I suppose as we're in France you're bloody well going to call this one 'Pierre'."

"Ahhhhh." said Owen, as understanding dawned. A very reluctant understanding.

The three men faced each other, each preoccupied with his own thoughts. Owen was thinking of leather restraints for Ianto, Ianto was considering where to insert Pierre and Jack, coincidentally, was thinking of both simultaneously.

Owen, still trying to preserve some degree of sanity in the situation, offered a potential solution. "Guys, I've got an idea. Instead of buying wooden spoons that aren't dishwasher-proof, why don't you just buy something more durable?"

Jack smiled, when as if on cue, Gwen came bounding in clutching a Kitchen Shop carrier bag triumphantly aloft. She passed it to Jack. They high-fived.

Ianto and Owen both looked on, wondering what was coming next.

"Ianto," said Jack, opening the bag and ceremoniously removing a slotted metal spoon. It had a dishwasher-proof plastic handle and pointy bowl. "I'd like you to meet 'Steely Dan'".


End file.
